Lonely Routes
by sansbear
Summary: Four times Bonnie came back, and the one time she didn't.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Just because it's been on my mind. Enjoy.

_Two Days_

"Why the manor?"

"Because, for the hundredth time, it's the one place in this town that's big enough for the two of us. And, oh, it's the one house I can actually enter."

Bonnie fell silent but Damon felt the strong roll of her eyes. He heard the intake of air, the thoughts whirring together to form another opposing point/question/irrelevant quibble, the pause before she, once again, made it clear he was in Hell.

Damon turned and held up a hand. "Stop." Bonnie pulled up short, mouth closing with a soft snap.

"Yes, it's my turf, yes, it's all about my comfort and blah blah blah, but I don't feel like playing Goldilocks on this little side trip to Twin Peaks, okay? You want to skip down nostalgia lane, go for it, but base camp is the Manor. Base camp is the most familiar place in this nightmare, base camp has fifteen rooms and a cellar, base camp is the most logical accommodation right now, okay?"

Damon looked at her. He lowered his head a little. "So, just so we're clear. We go to Manor. We stay at Manor. We stop asking stupid questions."

Bonnie blinked. Her mouth puckered. "Fine. You go to base camp, immerse yourself in the Salvatore experience. I'll be at Grams house." She turned. "Have fun raiding your blood pantry for all eternity."

Damon watched her stalk off. He almost called after her but dammit, she annoyed the shit out of him. He continued on to the Manor, trying to think of everything but that little scene. He'd have to get blood somehow. The town was empty of life save for him and the most useless witch ever, and if he had to choose between the slow agony of desiccation and taking a sip from that inflexible little neck of hers, he'd take the sloughing off of skin.

The Manor was still the Manor, with older appliances and a CD selection rivaling the local Sound Emporium. Damon made a mental note to check for _Blood Sugar Sex Magik _ before going down to the cellars. A fully stocked cooler of beautiful, glistening blood bags rested in the corner, behind a rack of Chateau Cheval Blanc. Damon shook his head as he chose a bag of A-positive.

Bonnie and her curses.

* * *

><p>The afternoon slid into evening. Damon lounged around the house, picked through artifacts of the past, read a few of Stefan diaries, mood rocked to <em>Nevermind<em>. He pulled out a family album, not his family, some distant family that took vacations in campervans and ate Sesame Street-themed sheet cake. Who lived here in 1994? Damon read the inscription under the picture of a rollerblading youth with lank, brown hair. _Zachary in the park._

Ah, Zach. Poor nephew Zach. Damon took a swig from the whisky bottle. He flipped through more years before coming to a group picture from the famous Founding Christmas party of 1993. He laughed. Look at these idiots, standing in the obvious cold, wearing the most atrocious semi-formal clothes since the 1970s, smiling and laughing in the dark, their only protection tacky multicolored lights. He peered closely. There was Liz and her closeted husband, Matt's boozy mother groping young Mayor Lockwood, a weasle-looking man...must be a Fell. Damon sobered a bit. Elena's mother had her arm linked with Abigail Bennett, the two women caught laughing at a private joke. He closed his eyes. When he got back, he'd find this and show it to Elena. Her eyes would shine and shimmer, and he'd hold her as she told him about her Mom, about Christmases, about traditions. He'd secretly collect all these stories and surprise her with a Gilbert Christmas, just the two of them. When he got back.

Damon opened his eyes and landed on Zach. This one definitely took after Stefan. Look at that tragic hero profile. But this hero grinned at the camera, his arm around a young, photogenic-Damon stilled. It came back with stunning clarity. The party, the aftermath.

Damon chucked the album into the fire. He watched the flames eat the paper, breathed in the ash. He was hungry, not for blood, not for whisky, for actual human food. He went to the kitchen and perused the refrigerator, the pantry, the cabinets. Nothing spoke to him except Chef Boyardee and a can of corn. He opened both into a pot and ate it hot before the kitchen sink. There was nothing outside, the night was mild, probably warm. Was the night so clear in 1994? It probably was. He couldn't remember-assholes running from a murder spree rarely stopped to enjoy starlight and moonbeams.

He peered through the night, eating, drinking, thinking. The spoon scraped the bottom of the pot. Damon blinked. He reached for the bottle-empty. He looked out the window. It was so dark out. A human would be hardpressed to find this place at night, especially a human without an ounce of common sense. Damon dug around the Manor for a phone, then, after a few seconds of staring at the phone pad, searched for the phone book. It took some effort, he felt self-conscious using a _phone book_ in conjunction with a _phone, _but he found the number and dialed.

At the first ring, Damon hung up. He tried again. He made it to three. He went back to the window. She was probably still pissed, which was typical. She probably rolled her eyes at the ringing phone, wise enough to know it was him. She was probably all cozy in a Bennett-family-wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with living relatives, all of them cackling around a bubbling cauldron of souls. She was probably glaring really hard at a candle, wishing the wick was his head and-

A shadow crossed the lawn. Bonnie broke into the frame a second later. She looked up and he held her gaze for a long second before she scowled and quickly passed from view. He listened to her quick steps up the porch, through the door, into the foyer, and up the stairs, to the left.

"That's my room."

The footsteps backed out and went hastily to the far end of the hall.

"Goodnight, Bonnie."

She muttered something crass. Damon grinned as he washed the pot.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I forgot to disclaim that I in no way want to profit from the drivel that is TVD right now. Enjoy!

_Two Weeks_

"You're cheating."

"It's called winning."

"I have three hits and not one sink?"

"Precisely."

"I got your four and your five, so either you don't quite get the rules of the game or you are blatantly cheating-"

"Oh my God, I am not cheating! I don't cheat. I might die a few times, but I don't cheat."

"Bonnie, the second we sink to cheating over a game, we've lost."

Bonnie stood up. Damon did his best smug jerk face. She glared at him. He lifted an eyebrow.

"Don't try too hard. You might shit yourself."

She ripped the paper to confetti and tossed it in the air. "You're an asshole. You're a crap loser and an asshole."

"Come on, tell me the truth. Sink?"

"Miss. A total miss," Bonnie said. She left the study and went upstairs to her room.

It was large and airy and gold afternoon light suffused the air. It had ample space to whirl around in frustration. The bed was big enough for agitated diving, and the bay windows were wide enough for the warm, breezy late spring air to come in and sweep out the funk.

Bonnie dived and whirled and exhaled all the negative energy she could but the desire to pop a few blood vessels remained. Damon infuriated her. She went to the window and leaned out. The eclipse started. Soon two weeks would come to an end. Bonnie massaged her scalp. Why did she still count? It was all one long, ceaseless stream of minor to severe aggravation.

The opening beat to "Regulate" blasted through the Manor. The victory song. Bonnie grabbed her sunglasses and strode from the room. She passed Damon doing his shimmy and met his wave with a glare before slamming out of the house.

This was how it started. Insanity. Worst-case scenario, this was it. Endless days of De La Soul and The Cure, increasingly mundane breakfasts, dinner offerings laced with spite, Damon-remixed board games designed to massage his massive ego. Bonnie wasn't at the point where she drank morning, noon, and evening, but he made it so hard to resist. Ten out of the fourteen days, she screamed into her pillow.

The urge to go home blindsided Bonnie as she approached the bridge. All she had to do was turn right, keep walking another six miles, and home. A home she barely missed when she was alive, but one she missed acutely now that she was...dead? Half-dead? A ghost? She could go home and fall into the paraphernalia of childhood normalcy. Bonnie sighed and looked up. The moon fully occluded the sun. The day was almost done. She could go home and never go back.

Worst-case scenario: she gave in.

Bonnie walked straight to Main. She did a little retail therapy, stocked up on flannel and baja hoodies, ate a few Klondike bars and grabbed three boxes of Hamburger Helper because she was sure something burnt and bloody was on the menu tonight.

She spent the bulk of the afternoon perusing the bookstore. It was one of those cramped spaces where you had to actually use a ladder in some places. There was a sign above the entryway to the basement that read, 'Esoteric Fare - I.Q. Required'. Bonnie decided to leave that exercise for another time. Her mind nearly melted when she came across the fantasy/science fiction section. The bookcases spilled into the already narrow aisle. It was glorious. She reined in her delight, scouring the shelves until she came across a collection of Raymond Feist books. Bonnie let out her first pleasurable sigh since reality collapsed. She found a favorite of Grams, Octavia Butler, and tucked that into her shopping bag. Much more appealed to her, so much more that Bonnie had half a mind to take up residence in the store.

The burgeoning blue of evening forced Bonnie up from amongst the stacks. She meandered to the front, happiness slowly draining from her. The prospect of returning to the Manor irked. No. That wasn't true, not entirely. She liked staying there. Sometimes, before she went to sleep, Bonnie swore she heard them all huddled in the downstairs study, arguing about the latest plan. The Manor was the only place where she felt closer to her time. It was Damon who irked her, Damon and his inability to be nice and accommodating for more than thirty minutes.

Her bag hit a low shelf, knocking a box to the floor. She bent and began to replace its contents when she saw it. Battleship. The actual board game. She laughed. For once, something positive came from thinking of Damon.

* * *

><p>Bonnie took her time walking back. She would have to be clever, not give in too easily to his antics. It would be hard, but her previous strategy worked. Damon knew nothing about her, nothing at all. She was just a faulty way out, a powerless human, a witless, unassuming, constant reminder of being maybe dead. What did he tell her after that rather vicious game of Monopoly? She had no will to win, no hunger, no stomach for a little heated battle. Bonnie narrowed her eyes as The Manor came into sight. Right.<p>

The smell of charred meat greeted Bonnie the moment she walked inside. Typical Damon. He was in the kitchen, dancing to Marky Mark. He spun, saw her, and assumed a casual lean against the island counter.

"You're well-trained. Dinner is served."

Bonnie glanced at the table. Two plates of gloopy instant mashed potatoes, charred steak sitting in a lake of blood, and mushy, pale green broccoli.

"I propose a game," Bonnie said.

"What? Goldfish? Wait, Tic-Tac-Toe?"

Bonnie dropped her bags on the table and pulled out Battleship. "Since you're too lazy to actually leave the house and get it, I brought it to you." She set it between the plates.

Damon quirked a lip. "Well, if we're playing for real, then it has to be for stakes."

"The other stake," he said when Bonnie lifted an eyebrow.

"Fine. You win, you name it. I win, I get dinner. Forever. And you have to pretend to be amicable."

"I'm hurt," Damon pouted, "but I accept the dinner clause. Forget the perpetual pleasantry. I like driving you crazy."

Bonnie sighed. "Two months."

"A day."

"A week."

"Deal," Damon said. Bonnie hid her grin.

"We shake on it."

"How about we drink on it?"

Damon poured two tumblers of brandy. Bonnie saw the gleam in his eye. She tossed it back. It had all the flavor of rubbing alcohol. Bonnie smiled at him.

"You are so obvious. It would be cute if you weren't you."

Damon grinned. "Just making it a little easier for you when the worst case scenario occurs."

They sat at the table. Damon built the board while she cut into her steak. Instead of rare, it was medium-rare. Bonnie ate a forkfull. She might have taken it easy on him because of the steak, but that brandy meant he needed to be trounced. He underestimated her always, which was fine.

Bonnie took her pieces. She grinned.

"Ready?"

"De-powered witches first."

Best case scenario: Bonnie won.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So, episode 6.06 dumped sugar in my bitter brew. This fic may have a happy ending. Enjoy!

_Two Months_

Bonnie burst into his bedroom. Damon felt rather than saw what he came to call her 'impotent rage shakes'. He focused on an oval spot on the ceiling. It barely moved in four hours. Had the hours and minutes and seconds stopped as well? Might as well. The same day, over and over, same eclipse, same night, same dawn, same paper, same breakfast, same arguments, same music, same books, same same same. He breathed in and smelled her scent, oats and honey.

Out of all the soaps in the world, Bonnie used the one that existed in 1994. Elena used a brand that did not exist in 1994. None of Elena existed in 1994. Not her scent, her handwriting, her pictures, her clothes, her favorite lipgloss, nothing. He was forever dependant upon his memory, but memory tortured him. It was all he had.

"O Fortuna" reached its crescendo. So did Bonnie. The phonogram scratched, abrupt silence filled the room. The record sailed out of the window a second later. Damon followed the arc with a twitch of annoyance.

"That was an original press from 1940."

"Why did you do it?"

Damon sat up. This was the third day of no makeup, wild hair, and baja hoodie/short overalls combo. This was the first time in the two months they've been stuck here where fury propelled her to seek him out.

He thought of what he could have possibly done. Nothing came to mind.

"Really? You didn't see the cookbook open next to the stove, the cookbook you conveniently splattered all over with bacon grease?"

Damon flopped back onto the pillows. "I apologize for whatever family heirloom I ruined by leaving it next to a stove. So sorry. Now, go simmer and boil somewhere else."

"No."

Damon sighed. "No?"

"You think you know everything. Or maybe, because you're use to doing shitty things to people, you chose one of the many shitty things you've done today and thought your attempt at an apology would 'placate' me."

He sat up again. "It's almost eclipse time. I doubt I've done anything worth-" Ah. The bacon grease. Damon smiled. A little early morning jog to the grocery store, a little mass destruction.

"That?" Damon waved his hand. "You can make your carbonara tomorrow. You can make it forever."

"Just not today. When I wanted to."

"Look, if you're going to bitch-"

"I hate you," Bonnie said. She didn't yell it. She enunciated each syllable with an almost lethal softness. Her eyes fixed on his face with such sheer ire Damon was sure flames ate his skin. But no fire. Only the promise of it.

Damon got to his feet. "So you hate me." He approached her. "I hate _you_. I hate that you're consulting cookbooks instead of grimoires." He entered her space. She straightened. "I hate that we have schedules. I hate that you do the crossword. Every. Damn. Day. I hate everything. I hate not being dead. I hate not being alive. I hate it. But not as much as I hate having you as a living reminder of a Hell I can't escape."

He backed Bonnie into the wall. The hook of her overall rubbed against his shirt. They were both breathing hard, he couldn't help but to match her, breath for breath. He meant to intimidate her but instead she overwhelmed his senses. Her smell, the way the light hit her neck, her pounding heart, its every beat shaking the strands of her hair. The room darkened. They stood locked in this battle for a minute, determined to win something. Her hazel eyes shimmered for a brief moment, then went black.

Damon turned away in an abrupt twist, darting to the phonogram and smashing it to the ground. He demolished anything his hands touched, rent sheets, ripped books, destroyed mirrors and ornaments. Blood smeared his hands. He felt the tightness around his eyes, the acuteness of incisors.

Damon inhaled. When he looked back, Bonnie was gone.

He didn't think anything of it until the next day at breakfast. Some sense of contrition made him put blueberries in the batter, and he drew pointy teeth with the Reddi Whip. When Bonnie didn't come down after he hollered her name ten times, Damon sped up to her room.

The door was open, the bed made, the window closed. All of her stuff was gone. In the bathroom, the towels were dry, and the sink, and the shower. Her toothbrush was missing.

Damon went back to the kitchen, sat at the table, and ate. He washed it all down with coffee, then with bourbon. Bonnie had done this before. She managed an entire day before she returned and ensconced herself in her room for two days, Depeche Mode on a continuous loop.

Damon went to the study and read. He finished two bottles of bourbon by noon. The Manor felt unclean so he aired out all the rugs, a chore he liked because it was the only time he could productively beat the shit out of something, and polished all the wood, a chore he hated because apparently coasters weren't cool enough and there was never enough Old English. He replenished the pantry and the refrigerator, which reminded him to ask Bonnie about this wonky magic restocking thing.

Evening descended. He ate Chef Boyardee and corn on the front porch. He drank a bottle of whiskey, ate a box of chocolate chip cookies, and went to bed.

Day Two happened like Day One.

At the end of Day Three, Damon lay in bed but did not sleep. He realized something momentous, more momentous than all the other times he realized it, primarily because nothing and no one could distract him from it: Bonnie had become a friend. A miserable, antagonizing, morally superior, disgustingly self-righteous, begrudgingly cute, absolutely useless friend. Those friends were the most dangerous kind. They tore chunks out of you and doused the wound with vervain when they left.

Day Four. Damon toured the town. Not to look for her, but to keep the body fit. The arcade had some interesting games. He played each of them. He ventured into the bookstore but it was devoid of anything interesting. He found a skateboard and rode around the neighborhoods, passing the Gilbert and Forbes residences, the charming Bennett house, even going out to the less populated, older part of Mystic, where the academics stayed.

By evening, Damon admitted to the bottom of his glass that he was worried. He was a vampire, not a witch, there was no way he could get back without her, she was important, he pushed her too hard, it had been a bad couple of same days, he missed Elena, he missed Stefan, he missed the noise and confusion of people. All these reasons amounted to what Bonnie would classify as a shitty excuse.

Damon made his pot of Boyardee and corn, took a bottle of brandy, and sat out on the porch. He ate slow, eyes peeled to the darkness. When he was finished, he went inside, washed up, trudged up stairs, fell onto his bed.

A minute later Damon left his room and went to stand in the doorway of her room. Bonnie lay on the bed, fully dressed, mud caked boots hanging off the edge. A weekender rested on an armchair in the corner.

"How did you get in?"

Damon counted her breaths. Fifteen before she answered, "Through the back."

"When?"

"Not long ago."

He nodded even though she kept her face pressed into the pillows.

"See anything interesting?"

A beat. "No."

Damon suppressed an angry retort. He thought of what might best be said in this moment to smooth things over.

"If you're going to apologize, don't. It's not what we do."

He released a breath. "Good. Because it wouldn't mean anything."

"I know."

Her head moved. Her eyes flashed in the dark. "I still hate you, though. For thinking you're the only one who wants to go back."

Damon held her gaze. Hate was better than nothing. Hate was fuel.

Bonnie turned her face away. "Goodnight, Damon."

Damon returned to his room. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He let himself feel relieved. Even his anger was relief. She came back.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: So, remember when I was all positive? Yeah, the last five minutes of 6.08 cured me of that. I actually had this penultimate chapter written and ready to update when I realized it was weirdly not nearly enough about Bonnie. So I scrapped it and wrote this, because Bonnie deserves to show she's not just a plot device or a trope or target practice, but a complicated, rich, incredibly powerful character. And also, I wrote this to remind myself that Damon is, more or less, a short-sighted work-in-progress.

Thank you for the reviews! Enjoy!

* * *

><p><em>Four Months<em>

Bonnie snapped her fingers. The candle went out. She did it again. The candle flickered. She focused. The fireplace went out, the great room went dark. Somewhere, Damon dropped his night cap.

"Dammit, Bonnie, that was a quarter of the non-vervained brandy!"

She ignored him. Another snap. Firelight suffused the room, brighter than before. She did it again. Dark. Light. She took solace in the power she displayed with a simple snap. And that was for theatrics. Bonnie closed her eyes and simply held the flame in her mind. This was strength. This was hers.

But it wasn't hers, not really. A current of electricity shot through her core, leaving her enervated. The flame went out and left nothing, not even a wisp of smoke to mark its existence. Bonnie forced herself to go back to the first time her power had been stripped away. It hurt more than Kai's touch. Perhaps it had to do with it being the first time she realized her magic could be taken. That fear of suddenly being truly powerless marked her for life. And now she met someone who could, with just a touch, render her permanently vulnerable. How could she forget that feeling?

Bonnie returned to the present. She flexed, expanding her reach to all the candles and fireplaces in the next three rooms. The feeling shrank but she still felt the sting of his grip on her wrist. All the candles in house. Damon yelled. She exhaled and the entire house went dark. The flame flickered in her mind, steady, a tinge of blue at the base.

When Bonnie breathed again, the house blazed with light and heat. She sensed Damon's anger before he arrived.

"I know he scared you, but instead of doing magical wax on, wax off, go find him and explode his head or something."

Bonnie altered the heat and light to its normal state. Damon stood half naked before her, holding a singed shirt. She looked at the hand clenched around it. It was still red and raw from a severe burn.

"Why isn't it healing like it normally would?"

"Because vampires don't like fire. Shares too many properties with our mortal enemy, sunlight."

He tossed the shirt to the couch and looked down on her, frowning. "Well?"

Bonnie pushed away from the desk and stood. "You have a nice body, Damon." She picked up the grimoire and made to move around him. Damon blocked the path.

He held up the burned hand. "_This_. I think I deserve an apology. Or an attempt at one."

The idea of apologizing to Damon struck Bonnie as preposterous. She actually laughed. "I'm sorry, but you want _me_ to apologize to _you_ for something I didn't mean to do? Seriously?"

He started to speak when Bonnie grabbed his wrist. "Look at it, Damon." His eyes fell to his hand. It was healed. "No scars, no sign of any permanent damage. Looks like you're still impervious to everything but a well-placed stake." Bonnie dropped his wrist and walked around him.

"What is your problem?"

Bonnie went to the inner study. Damon followed.

"Bonnie-"

"What?" Bonnie slammed the book down. "What is it now?" She hoped displaying a little temper would send him away, but his cheek muscle jumped and his eyes were at a slight squint, which meant he was angry and curious, which meant this was a fight.

"Kai upset you? Fine. Tell me. Or tell the moon. Or write it in your journal. But please, limit your pyromania to lighting a sea breeze candle for serenity."

"Whatever," Bonnie said. She opened the grimoire, determined to ignore him.

"Hey!"

His shout pushed past the last of her reserves. "You don't care," Bonnie yelled. She startled him and it made her even angrier. She couldn't contain it, she couldn't walk away this time.

"What?"

"You don't care. Kai can take my power, he can consume who I am, the reason I matter, the only way we can go home. And you don't care. You want me to do whatever it takes, but it might take all of me. And that doesn't matter, right? As long as you get back to Elena, back to planning your perfect Christmas, back to rebuilding your car with Stefan and taking Elena on that road trip to the Keys."

The silence was electric. His expression ranged from confused to hurt to furious.

"If I could do something, I would. But I can't. I have to depend on you, which terrifies me because you don't know what you're doing half the time!" He stepped closer. "And don't you dare throw my hope back in my face just because you're feeling useless. This isn't about me. This is about you."

"No," Bonnie shook her head, "This is about us." She realized the truth the moment she said it. It did not make saying it aloud any less terrifying, nor did it abate the ever-ripening animosity she felt towards him. At least now she understood why.

The anger evaporated. His eyes widened. He looked at a loss. Bonnie closed the book and looked at him, really looked at him.

"I remember the one time I ever really liked you. It was when Klaus hijacked Alaric's body and wanted to kill me, remember?" Bonnie looked down to her clenched hands. "God, it sounds like some horrible B-plot from a cheesy science fiction show."

"I remember," Damon said.

Bonnie glanced at him. They locked eyes for a brief moment before he turned away. "I never would have thought to play dead like that, not on my own," Bonnie continued. Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "We've come a very long way, haven't we?"

"I don't know what I can do," Damon said.

Bonnie gave up with a sigh. "There's nothing you can do, Damon, you're right." She sat at the desk and opened the grimoire. When he didn't leave, Bonnie stared at him. The longer she stared, the more it took to keep her eyes from watering.

"Can you go away now?"

Damon stared at her.

"Leave!"

He turned on his heel and left. A second later glass shattered, then the service tray. A minute later the door slammed.

Bonnie tried to concentrate on the topic of cosmic prisons, but her head ached. She left the study for a glass of water and Advil, came back, tried to read, closed the book and rested her head in her hands. She was on her own in this. Really and truly, this was her battle. Bonnie dug the heels of her hands into her eyes until the pressure became too much. She jumped up and left the house, walking blindly out into the night.

Okay, so in the past she needed him. So Kai could, potentially, most certainly, absolutely kill her. So he had the ascendant and the spell. So what? Yeah, backup would be nice, maybe some input in averting definite death, but did it need to come from Damon? She could figure this out on her own. She could, right? Bonnie stopped on the Wickery Bridge. The still, black water reflected the clear night sky like glass. She leaned over the railing and breathed. It would have been nice if he believed in her, Bonnie decided. If he believed in her, this fear wouldn't have her so locked up. She straightened up and shook herself. Damon didn't matter. He was right - this was about her.

Bonnie sighed. Kai was the problem. Kai had the ascendant. He knew the spell. She had magic. She knew nothing. No, Bonnie frowned. He could take her power, but he didn't. He seemed invested in her not just being a witch, but a Bennett witch. Bonnie tapped a beat on her chin. She knew Kai had the ascendant. She knew he was a psychopathic power vampire. She did not know if he knew anything about magic other than stealing it. But there was no way of knowing that for sure unless she confronted him, and the last time that happened, she got burned. But that was when she had no idea he was a psychopathic power vampire. Well, the psycho part she knew but...Bonnie turned in a circle. Didn't matter. There was only one way to figure out the truth.

She turned in the direction of the Manor. But first, an apology. Or at least an attempt at one.

* * *

><p>Bonnie found Damon playing Sevens in his room. She knocked on the door jamb. He caught the ball, paused, then began the game over.<p>

"Silent treatment? Okay," Bonnie clasped her hands, "so I'll just talk and you, for once, will just -"

There was a second pause between the ball bouncing off the wall, the door shutting in her face, and the ball resuming its beat.

Bonnie pressed her lips together. Everything in her said to retreat, let Damon vent his frustration or whatever but she remained in front of the door.

"I'm not going to apologize to you. But I will...thank you."

The beat stopped abruptly. Bonnie rushed on. "Look, I know you think I'm the worst witch in the world. I know you think I'm only good for the big, Hail Mary save, and even then I manage to screw it up. I know you don't believe in me. And this all sounds bad, but it's not. Because I need it. Without you, I wouldn't try so hard. I'd just accept defeat and go along with inevitable. So thank you."

Silence. Bonnie counted the seconds up to thirty. When he didn't open the door, she went downstairs to the study. Upstairs, the ball thwacked the wall seven times. She opened the grimoire and read until her eyes swam.

Bonnie woke to being moved. Her head came to rest on a shoulder while arms carried her with little effort through the darkened manor. Sleep blurred her vision, but she knew it was Damon. Bonnie was too tired to tense up, her tongue too thick with sleep to exclaim. She left her head where it was and closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of brandy, old books, and Brut aftershave.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: This is it, the final chapter. It took longer than expected due to watching 6.09 and reassessing my Bamon feels. Still my ship, but Bonnie is my girl. I can do without Damon. This chapter was hard to write, primarily because there is so little dialogue, and also because it could easily lead to several more chapters. I hope you enjoyed this mini, dear readers. For those who follow me, this is proof that a Bamon fic can be completed, and for those who reviewed, lots of love. Thank you and enjoy!

_Year One_

It was easier the first time. The business of being a vampire in the vicinity of Mystic Falls coupled with the failed reunion with Elena distracted Damon from it.

And then hope came in the form of a teddy bear. Ridiculous, but so Bonnie.

Damon took that bear and ran. He only had one goal, fuck everything else. He should have known better. The death and danger quotient rose precipitously when he put his one-track mind to anything important.

Despite the imminent shitstorm, he found a way to return. He found a way back to her, he even made some headway with Elena, everything was going well, all he had to do was distract himself while he waited for Bonnie. Simple. Like taking blood from a human.

The second time Damon returned without her, it hurt. Not the hurt of disappointment, not the hurt of frustration. Alcohol and stillness dealt with that. This hurt was something else. It wasn't a place he could reach, there wasn't a balm in the world that could make it sting less. Relief lived in another world, probably distraught because hope left.

Her face haunted Damon. Bonnie smiled at him, bluish white light shining on her face, her eyes so clear and reassuring. That smile though. The beatific smile of a habitual martyr. He hated it. He never wanted to see it again. Give him sloppy. Give him sarcastic, pained, loopy, anything but that beneficent, sacrificial lamb crap. He did nothing to earn it. He never wanted to place her in a position to give it.

Damon knew how it would be. He saw her expression when she found the porch empty. He knew the shock, how silence could be so loud. She would try to rationalize their absence quickly, before the despair took hold. Something happened, something always happened, they will come back as soon as it was fixed. She would nod, and hold on to hope, but hope was a frayed, patchwork rope. It didn't have the strength to support her. It would snap, and Bonnie, despite all her strength, would succumb to it.

He understood it. It paralyzed. It locked you in your mind and made you devour your memories. It held up a mirror and made you look until it cracked. It only gave you two options: plunge everyone around you into the same misery or adapt and use it to become something else entirely. Damon chose wrong every time. And he had no real baggage other than being a fucking fool when he was alive and having a brother that tied his humanity to him. How would Bonnie choose?

Even if she didn't become the worst version of herself, Bonnie wouldn't be the same. Nobody could. That didn't frighten Damon. What worried him, what made him so acutely aware of time passing, was what it would change her into.

* * *

><p>Most days, Bonnie slept. She tried drinking but it made her feel sick enough to want to live. So she slept. She dreamed of enjoying Christmas brunch with her dead family. She dreamed of fire flakes and zipping through enormous underground caverns on a broom. She dreamed of someone holding her hand very tight as they fell through a star-filled sky. That dream she found difficult to leave.<p>

Some days Bonnie read. Some days she explored. Some days she worked on expanding her badass catalog. In a week she could start a fire from scratch, ride a motorcycle without serious bodily injury, skateboard in a straight line, do an hour of yoga without almost passing out, and discern fifteen types of poisonous plants in the wild.

Some days she packed the trunk of a Jeep wrangler she hotwired, stuck stars on points on a map, and started driving. She only ever got as far as Whitmore before it hit her again.

One day she did a stupid thing and explored the Manor. She found traces of Damon everywhere. His cologne in the shower, his secret stash of Chef Boyardee and canned corn, which pissed her off because he gave her so much shit about liking spaghetti-o's. She found a video of him confessing to what made this hell. Bonnie let the tape run. He spoke in detail of that day. It only occurred to her that like vampires, memories were eternal. They did not fade, they did not decay and wither and die. He touched on Elena for an hour, in which Bonnie found his leather jacket, tool box, and the secret recipe for Gail's pancakes. She was in the great room, flipping through books, when Damon said her name. She sat on the couch to listen.

"Bonnie is driving me absolutely batshit insane with this teddy bear. Ms. Cuddles. Not m-i-s-s, but capital M, lowercase s, period. I touched it to move it away from the hotplate because, hello, Ms. Cuddles cannot rest where I make BELTs, and she had a fit. A fit! I moved it too roughly. It's precious and wonderful and God, she goes on like Proust or something. If only Ms. Cuddles was the fucking portal to the real world instead of to a past she can't remember because she was an infant. Girl drives me literally up a wall."

Bonnie started to cry. He had more things to bitch about, all of them mundane, but she cried too hard to hear. She missed Damon. When did that happen? Why? What if it never stopped? How could she miss him? No answers came. She cried until she passed out from a headache. Damon sank all her ships with a smile. Even in dreams she missed him. It was the third worst day since landing in purgatory.

Christmas happened. She imagined they put up a tree, hung a sprig of mistletoe in the hall, strung lights, and baked cookies. She imagined them all bundled up and warm, smiling at each other. They drank cocoa laced with Bailey's and hot toddies and had a drunk snowball fight and fell asleep before the fire. Caroline most definitely planned some massive event that went horribly wrong and ended in a supernatural crisis. A fight between brothers further worsened the mood, or maybe a fight between friends, did it matter between who? There was always a fight. And the day ended with Damon and Elena reaffirming their undying, all-consuming passion as snow fell all around, casting the death or whatever terrible thing that happened previously as nothing but a footnote in the annals of their epic love.

Bonnie went to sleep and dreamt of nothing.

* * *

><p>This time Damon went alone. No distractions, no detours down memory lane, no remembrances of things past. The taste of witch blood lay thick on his tongue as he jogged from the cemetery into town. No fuck ups today. He carried Ms. Cuddles in a pack, just in case a fuck up did occur. He didn't want to leave her with nothing.<p>

Damon started at the places she would go. He drove, yelling her name, blasting his horn. He entered the houses, the bookstore, the arcade, the hospital, the library, the clocktower - no Bonnie. He sat in front of the Manor for a few minutes, letting all the worst scenarios run rampant. He let the poison run clear until there was nothing but resolve. If she got hurt, he'd wait until she healed. If she left the state, he'd put his aviation skills to use. If Kai had somehow got her out, he'd find her. If anything, he would find her.

He left the porch, got in his car, and drove. There was one last place. Bonnie used to talk about how normal she had been. She went to school, did her cheerleading, hung out in the woods during homecoming, looked forward to prom. He had teased her about her All-American high school fantasy, asking if she wanted to wear Danny Zuko's jacket too. She never rose to the jabs, though. Bonnie wanted what any popular, attractive, good girl wanted from high school. She viewed that time as her gateway to the future replete with possibilities. Whatever dreams she had about the future died the first day of junior year. She'd want to go back there, back to that time before doppelgangers, before Other Sides, before werewolves and vampires and witches, before a crow landed on the hood of her car.

Damon turned onto Oak Street and sped towards Mystic High.

He parked in front of the school, behind a Wrangler with muddy tires and dusty windows. His leather jacket rested on the passenger seat. A rhythmic thumping came from somewhere inside the school. He followed the beat to 'Pump Up the Jam' to the gym. Through the door panel Damon saw Bonnie's back. Her hair was swept up, fly-aways everywhere, sweat glistened on her neck and raised arms. She ran and did a series of flips down the length of the gym. She pivoted into a stand, turned, and started another series.

Bonnie came to a stop with her back to him. She was about to continue when she paused, dropped her arms, and whirled to face him.

She looked at him for a long time. When he touched her arm, she closed her eyes. She kept them closed when his arms came around and held her. It wasn't real to her until she heard him say her name as a soft question.

* * *

><p>Every brush of her skin could spark a fire. There wasn't a breath of cool air to be found. Bonnie drowned in a press of gyrating, rocking, twisting, howling bodies. Percussive beats vibrated her skull, disrupted her heart rhythm. She got lost in being lost, in letting her limbs work themselves until they throbbed from the exertion.<p>

She walked home as night bled into watery sunlight. It was cold, her breath came out in puffs of white smoke, but she didn't feel it. Her heart still buzzed from all the noise and friction of living. She hummed happily as she unlatched the gate and walked the little path hidden by hedgerows to the guest addition she rented.

The shadows near the front door moved. Bonnie stopped. Magic itched her tongue. A figure detached from the formless dark. She recognized the way he stepped towards her before she caught the blue look of irritation.

"Where have you been?"

Bonnie swished the magic down. "Out," she said. She walked around him to the door. She unlocked it with a finger and walked through.

Damon hovered before the doorway. She waited until he was about to call her name to invite him in. He followed her into the kitchen, watching her as she perused the refrigerator. It reflected her lack of appetite. She grabbed some muesli and milk, the only foods in there, and took down a bowl.

"We've been looking for you, calling, sending up flares," Damon said.

"I know. I turned off my phone. Didn't see any flares, though," Bonnie said. She was about to dip her spoon into the bowl when he lifted it away.

"Did you forget about today? The thing for Elena?"

Bonnie sighed. "No, I didn't." She looked at him. "I just didn't want to go." He stared at her, anger sharpening his eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. She reached for the bowl. "Can I eat this before it gets soggy?"

Damon tossed the bowl into the sink. It cracked. The milk and muesli glugged down the drain. Bonnie looked at him for a moment. She supposed he expected a reaction. An explosion. Bonnie shrugged and walked away to her bedroom.

"What the hell is going on with you?"

Bonnie hung her jacket on the closet door and toed off her boots. She went into the bathroom and splashed warm water on her face before lathering on face wash.

"You've been acting like an asshole for the past month now. Blowing off your friends, shutting us out. Shit's been going on and you disappear."

She dried her face and left the bathroom, went to her drawer, and removed a large t-shirt and flannel pants.

"No one knows what's going on with you, Bonnie. No one -"

Bonnie pulled off her shirt and bra, tossing them to the hamper. She tugged off her jeans and socks and changed into her pajamas. She brushed past him to get a glass of water.

"Bonnie," Damon said. He took her wrist.

She stopped. He had a firm grasp, warm, with just the right amount of pressure to make her stay. This was the first time he touched her since her return. His thumb slid down to her pulse. He came nearer, the zipper of his leather jacket grazed her arm. She felt his stare, felt him waiting, felt him trying to gauge what to do next.

Bonnie kept her face turned. She watched faint bands of sunlight stretch across the hall. She listened to him breathe. He told her once that breathing was a voluntary action, that vampires remembered the breathing pattern of a human they loved, to feel closer to them, to feel more human. His chest rose and fell in time with hers.

"I wish you left me there," Bonnie said.

His grip tightened. "No, you don't."

"I believed you when you said you came back for me," Bonnie continued, "but I don't know why you did."

She touched the fingers around her wrist. "You have Elena and Stefan and Alaric. You have an eternity of new beginnings. You have so much to come back to," she said. Bonnie looked at him. He looked back, waiting.

"I returned to the same future, locked in the same battles. I came back to no family. I came back to a boy who says he loved me, but not enough to burn the world down to get me back. I came back to lead a life that belonged to everyone else but me."

Bonnie gently freed her hand from his. "I'm sorry I can't be the Bonnie you know. And I'm sorry I haven't informed you that she died. She sacrificed herself too many times to come back to you."

Magic tickled the inside of her cheek. All she had to do was say it and he'd forget where she lived. He'd go back to the others and they'd forget, and then Bonnie Bennett, whoever she was, would be dead and she, the one who came back, could live.

She inhaled, about to say the words, when he dropped a kiss on her lips.

Bonnie started. She blinked rapidly up at him. He took her face in his hands and studied her.

"I came back to a life that went on without me. Elena erased me. Stefan gave up on me. Alaric mourned me. I came back to the same shit, the same battles, the same worn choices. But then there you were. And I had someone to burn down the world for."

Damon lowered his head again and Bonnie braced herself, then relaxed when he kissed her cheek.

"You're not dead, Bonnie. You're alive. I can't fault you for finally deciding to live."

He stepped back with a grin. "Nice to meet you, Bonnie Bennett."

Bonnie stared at him. She still felt his lips on hers, on her cheek, his thumbs stroking the flesh beneath her eyes. He left the room and she listened to his footsteps, hesitant at first, then with more purpose. Before, she would have agonized over what this meant. She would have been consumed with disgust, personal and towards him, followed closely by guilt. She would have fought him all the way to the door, placed wards and hexes everywhere she could, run as far as she could for as long as she could before Elena or Caroline called her crying. She would have kept her face impassive, her words curt, attitude abrasive while internally burn because that kiss, that brief touch of the lips, made her heart beat again. She would have left it alone, before. That was what she did.

_But then there you were._

"Wait," Bonnie stopped him at the door.

Damon crooked an eyebrow.

"You owe me breakfast. And a new bowl."

He narrowed an eye. "The last time I made you breakfast, you stuck a pencil in it."

"Then don't make pancakes," Bonnie said.


End file.
